Perceptual Grouping as Bayesian Mixture Estimation
Jacob Feldman, Manish Singh, Vicky Froyen · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2014
Abstract Perceptual grouping is the process by which the visual system organizes the image into distinct objects or clusters. The authors describe a Bayesian approach to grouping, formulating it as an inverse probability problem in which the goal is to estimate the organization that best explains the observed set of visual elements. The authors pose the problem as an instance of mixture modeling, in which the image configuration is assumed to have been generated by a set of distinct data-generating components or sources (“objects”) whose locations and structure one seeks to estimate. They illustrate the approach with three classes of source models: dot clusters, contours, and axial shapes. They show how this approach to the problem unifies and gives natural accounts of a number of perceptual grouping problems, including contour integration, shape representation, and figure–ground estimation.